Romanians Pull Down Statue of Lenin

BUCHAREST, Romania — Demolition workers in Bucharest today finally succeeded in pulling down a 30-foot statue of V. I. Lenin in Bucharest that had resisted all efforts to budge it over the weekend.

A squad including workers who recalled dismantling a statue of Josef Stalin in 1970 after an earlier change in the political wind tried unsuccessfully Saturday and Sunday to shift the seven-ton bronze effigy with hoists, a demolition ball and blowtorches.

But after more work to detach it from its red granite plinth, cranes swung it free today as a crowd of several hundred clapped and cheered.

The new authorities in Bucharest have called the giant likeness of the father of the Soviet state a redundant symbol of Romania’s Communist past. Mayor Dan Predescu says he hopes to auction it off with a starting price of $1 million.

If no buyer is found, it may be melted down to make a memorial commemorating the December revolution that swept away the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Predescu said there has been no complaint from the Soviet Embassy.

“The Russians are not very happy,” he said, “but they told us that if this is what we wanted to do, it is our country.”